Delegates prepare for International Whaling Commission meeting
Updated
![Australia will call for scientific whaling permits to be scrapped, while Japan is pushing for a commercial whaling moratorium to be overturned. [Australian Customs Service]](http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/img/news/base/aus_whaling_070208_acs.jpg "Australia will call for scientific whaling permits to be scrapped, while Japan is pushing for a commercial whaling moratorium to be overturned. [Australian Customs Service]")
Australia will call for scientific whaling permits to be scrapped, while Japan is pushing for a commercial whaling moratorium to be overturned. [Australian Customs Service]
The International Whaling Commission says the humpback whale will be spared for another summer.
Japan has told the IWC it will not include it in its scientific research program until after 2009, as Environment Reporter Sarah Clarke reports from the Chilean capital Santiago:
The Chair of the IWC, Bill Hogarth, convinced the Japanese fisheries authority to abandon plans to hunt 50 humpback whales after it triggered outrage from Australia.
He argued such a move would have further split an already deeply divided IWC, and has now confirmed that humpbacks are off the table for another year.
"I think Japan these are just my thoughts that Japan will honour that until 2009 or get to the point when we do make bargains or don't make bargains," he said.
Japan however may increase its scientific whale quota through a loophole in the commission.
The official meeting starts tomorrow.
